The tools I love are made by awful people • Hacker News Board

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#51

Post by pjerem » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

mergy wrote: post #3

Switching to Linux is not easy. You almost have to hit a wall when you are just done with the bargaining to keep something like Apple or Windows. It kind of takes a major jump. You also need to be persistent after that jump and not retrench when you can't pull from the familiar. You'll get there at some point just don't think or care about the awful people - think about how and in what way you want to operate directi…

> Switching to Linux is not easy.

Which is a shame because in itself, most Linux distros _are_ easy. The ergonomics and the rationales are, imo, better/easier to understand than Windows or even MacOS.

In fact, even _installing_ a modern distro is easier than installing Windows 11.

What’s hard is not Linux, it’s switching. It requires to, well, think different :)

Having said that, I honestly think switching from Windows to MacOS is harder. I appreciate working with macOS and it can be pretty ergonomic but it’s honestly barely usable without installing and paying for half a dozen sharewares.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#52

Post by adastra22 » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

bolognafairy wrote: post #44

adastra22 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will it help anything, really? The law of unintended consequences will strike once again.

Yep. Fuck laws. The fact that there are potential negative consequences means that we should throw them all out!

It means we should engineer incentives rather than trying to regulate outcomes. Policy choices aren’t binary.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#53

Post by moffkalast » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:26 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #12

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundati…

I always found it funny that my ASUS laptop has always functioned perfectly under linux... except that putting it to sleep would trigger a full shutdown every time lmao. I may or may not have lost some data once or twice by being overly gullible.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#54

Post by lemagedurage » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

akho wrote: post #20

> Things will only change when democratically elected governments across the world step in with regulation, drag Big Tech through the courts, and fine them billions of dollars. How will that help you install Linux.

I think the point is that if the corporations are morally kept in check by governments, then installing Linux wouldn't be necessary.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#55

Post by daemonologist » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

all2 wrote: post #16

lenkite wrote: post #12

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundati…

I hate that this is true. I have 10 year old hardware and I still haven't managed to get suspend on lid close to work. Also, power management? Linux seems really power hungry. I expect 6ish hours out of the battery I have, but with Linux doing browsing and coding I get 2 to 3ish hours, even with cpu throttling and the dimmest back light settings. Have mainline Fedora or Ubuntu solved these issues?

I'm on mainline Fedora on a Thinkpad Z13 (Gen 1). Sleep works unless I connect or disconnect a thunderbolt device while the machine is sleeping (which hard crashes the system); I would say it's noticeably more reliable than Windows. Power consumption is still poor in all states - usable, but generally worse than under Windows and pathetic compared to a Macbook.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#56

Post by dismalaf » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

I've been using Linux exclusively for 15 years. Went through my entire university degree using only Linux.

The biggest issue people face when switching is the desire for it to be the same as their previous OS. It's not. It never will be. It's different (and IMO better).

Like GNOME Shell, so many people hate it. No dock, no way to minimize Windows, etc... Until you actually try to learn it a little. Launching apps is super quick with the search, you can bring up overview with 3 finger swipe up on the touchpad, scroll virtual desktops with 3 finger sideways swipe, arrange your windows with meta + arrow keys, etc... Its nearly as keyboard driven and quick to use as a tiling window manager yet my wife can use it as well (she's very much not technical).

As for apps, there's an app for everything normal people need to do. For developers, it's easily the best OS. Games, it's got most of them. I guess if you're an accountant forced to use Excel don't bother (and if you're not forced to use Excel, Gnumeric is better anyway).

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#57

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #12

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundati…

> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve.

Pick any model on this list that has all green boxes. There is no step 2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo

(Sent from my thinkpad with perfectly working sleep)

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#58

Post by aptj » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #4

There’s this modern affliction where people believe they are morally responsible for the actions of every person they buy anything from. For your own sanity, please let this go. You are responsible for your own actions. If you buy a pen from a psychopath and he uses the money to buy a bullet and shoot someone, that’s not your fault. He’s responsible for his actions. It’s like everyone somehow forgot that other humans…

Wrong. It's not about morality (or "main character"), it's about caring for your own and your beloved ones current and future. Ignorance, apathy and indifference keep the buyers/consumers/followers encouraging the unhealthy yet very "focused and efficient" morons (big and small) to ruin the world for everyone while they accumulate enormous power to further abuse the rest.

__If you buy gold from someone who poisons a river (to extract the gold more "efficiently"), soon your whole forest will suffer from deceases and degradation.__

You may feel tiny and powerless but it's sane and healthy to care for the whole ecosystem and think about aftereffects of everyone's actions.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#59

Post by dismalaf » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:30 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #12

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundati…

> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop

??? I've had 3 laptops over the last decade+ and sleep/restore has worked on all of them. You using some weird distro or DE?

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#60

Post by merouan » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:30 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #4

There’s this modern affliction where people believe they are morally responsible for the actions of every person they buy anything from. For your own sanity, please let this go. You are responsible for your own actions. If you buy a pen from a psychopath and he uses the money to buy a bullet and shoot someone, that’s not your fault. He’s responsible for his actions. It’s like everyone somehow forgot that other humans…

Hmm, this doesn't track with history. Boycotts, and more generally collective economic action (strikes, etc), are an incredibly powerful form of protest. People have shaped the world through refusing to buy from oppressive forces - case in point, the boycotts of South Africa during apartheid successfully pressured South Africa out of apartheid. We got our collective rights as workers (40 hour work days, etc) through strikes, boycotts, and more.

It's not easy, but if you're serious about it is best done in community, with support and strategy. So, the opposite of main character syndrome, I would say.

It's also very odd that you take an analysis that is fundamentally systemic and translate it into purchasing from an individual psychopath - under what assumptions is that a valid comparison, one with any merit? It's not like corporations exist in a vacuum, only to emerge from the void to casually sell a single pen, the money with which they use to buy a single bullet. We as individuals, as communities, exist in feedback with the systems that we are a part of, including (surprise) corporations. So, yes, we have power to shape them, though (again) not easily.